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A Short History of Portland
Allan Levinsky
Allan Levinsky's *A Short History of Portland* does something surprisingly rare: it gives Maine's largest city a compact, readable narrative history for general readers. Published in 2007, it runs from Portland's colonial beginnings through fires, booms, and reinvention to the working waterfront city of today, illustrated throughout and anchored by a detailed timeline and short profiles of notable Portlanders. Levinsky, a Portland native, wrote it as an accessible overview rather than an academic tome, and the Maine Legislature singled it out as the first comprehensive narrative of the city published since the early twentieth century. It is the book to hand someone who has just moved to Portland, or who has always lived there and never quite pieced the story together. Brisk, affectionate, and genuinely useful.
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The author
Allan M. Levinsky was a Portland native and a graduate of the University of Maine who turned to writing local history later in life. Alongside this book he wrote At Home with the General, on Joshua Chamberlain, and The Night the Sky Turned Red, on the Great Portland Fire of 1866. He died in 2024, remembered as a devoted chronicler of his home city.
The book
Published in 2007 by Commonwealth Editions, A Short History of Portland is a concise, illustrated narrative of the city from its earliest settlement to the present. Levinsky leans on a lengthy timeline of key events and roughly two dozen thumbnail biographies of important Portlanders, giving the book both a spine and a cast of characters. The result covers a lot of ground without ever feeling like a textbook.
How it reads
It reads quickly and warmly, pitched at newcomers and lifelong residents alike. A 2008 Maine Legislature proclamation called it the first comprehensive narrative of the city published since the early twentieth century — high praise for a slim paperback, and a fair measure of the gap it filled.
For more context
Readers wanting more can turn to Levinsky's own book on the 1866 fire, or to the collections of the Maine Historical Society in Portland.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Allan Levinsky
- Publisher
- Commonwealth Editions
- Place of publication
- Beverly, Massachusetts
- Year
- 2007
- ISBN
- None
- Format
- Paperback
- Shelf
- History
- Location
- Maine
Places